Did anybody follow the advances in the development of nuclear batteries safe enough to enter into daily life?
I am trying to get further info but could not reach.

There are several types of nuclear batteries.
The little plutonium goodies that power some of our early space stuff, are not really batteries at all.

(the new stuff that uses solid state Sterling cycle engines is neat.)

Hf 178 can be used as a nuclear battery, research quantum photonics, or google 'gamma ray laser'.
A new one is the use of tritium (that radioactive isotope of hydrogen), this has been in the news lately. An alpha particle is an electron, and can be used as such.

Most of these suckers are going to be a little dangerous.
Contrast this with the use of radium dial watches from a few years back, burn your wrist off.
(well, not really, but a definate problem if you bust the watch crystal.)

I think to be safe we will have to wait for matter-antimatter reactions.
I am certain mankind can be trusted with that sort of thing.

hey, icecycle -

a beta particle is basically an electron. An alpha particle is a helium nucleus. these suckers would be awesome for my laptop - too bad I would have to be at least 6 feet away from it in order to type!

ss

you ever see a tritium watch? the military issues watches that have a tritium-powered backlight. russian lighthouses used radiothermal generators, too. too bad everyone's so radio-phobic nowadays, or we'd have some real power at our disposal from these wondrous devices.

and you wouldn't need to be six feet away for a beta battery. you'd just need some relatively thin aluminum shielding to block stray beta rays. and six feet of air between you and a beta source wouldn't protect you much, anyway (at least not of you're typing away for several hours while beta rays perform calisthenics on your DNA)

I think fusion technology will make good batteries before matter-antimatter can be used.

solidspin
Thank you, I will blame the alcohol (which accounts for a lot of my stupidity.)
Amazingly, I am not drunk at present, but that will change shortly.
(but I will try not to post without re-reading what I have typed in future.)

Ni-63 has a power density of approximately 6 watts per kilogram, and emits beta rays (electrons) of about 66 kilovolts energy -- about twice the voltage accelerating the electrons in a typical CRT-technology TV, and similar to the voltage found in CRT projector units (those enormous old three-tube monstrosities that used to hang menacingly (because they were SO bloody _heavy_!) from the flimsy ceilings in bars, projecting a dim off-colour image that was _never_ properly converged onto some cheap 'screen' -- often merely a wall painted white).

But I digress. The point is, that intensity of beta radiation is going to be stopped dead in its tracks by nothing so much as ordinary dry air. Also, beta is the _only_ type of radiation emitted -- no pesky gamma kicking around. Therefore, you could stuff your pillow full of this stuff and sleep on it, and never suffer a thing from it, except possibly a very bad static-y hair day the following morning (which would be corrected as soon as you shower). You'd pretty much have to eat it in order to do any sort of actual damage to yourself... and do you know how awful nickel tastes?

At such a low power density, _nothing_ can EVER "blow up" -- it would be utterly impossible. The only real risk could be implosion, caused by physically damaging the tube and destroying its vacuum. But if it's a cylinder of reasonably-heavy stainless, that would be extremely unlikely. You can also place a dead short right across the output of this thing, and cause no damage or loss of power whatsoever.

Of course, you have to put up with that low power output... for well longer than half a century. If you want greater energy density, then you have to consider an alternative beta emitter... and that would definitely not be as safe as Ni-63 is.